Solar power generation capacity is set to eclipse that of coal this year in China, based on a report from the country's National Energy Administration late last week.
Photovoltaic capacity now stands at 1,274 billion kilowatts, roughly equal to the country's coal-fired generation capacity, with the sold fuel providing just under half the country's electricity in H1.
Based on the fact that about three quarters of the 117 million kilowatts of new electricity capacity additions have been renewables in the first half of the year, solar capacity looks set to overtake coal imminently.
While coal-fired generation can operate around the clock however, solar has a much lower capacity factor due to the fact that it can only produce in daylight hours.
Coal-fired power generation slipped below 50% for the first time in any Jan-June period, at 49.7% this year, a milestone that the National Energy Administration deemed "a phased achievement in the long-term promotion of non-fossil energy power generation substitution."
Solar is the fastest growing of new renewables capacity additions with 72 million kilowatts added in H!, followed by wind at 39 million kilowatts, hydropower at 6.03 million kilowatts and biomass at 600,000 kilowatts.
China's renewables capacity reached 2.46 billion kilowatts by the end of June, up 13.7% from a year earlier.
Total installed capacity of solar is now 1.27 billion kilowatts while there is 679 million kilowatts of wind, 454 million kilowatts of hydropower and 48 million kilowatts of biomass capacity, making for a total of 2.46 billion kilowatts of installed renewables capacity nationwide.
Wind and solar combined account for 48.3% of total installed power capacity.
In H1, renewables produced 41.2% of China's electricity, an increase of 9% from a year earlier, with wind and solar combined producing 24.6% of the country's power.
Renewables growth still appears to be lagging the pace of demand growth however considering that renewables covered 61.9% of the increase in total electricity consumption. That means the renewables capacity additions are still insufficient to displace coal.
Within wind power, of the 38.62 million kilowatts of capacity added this year, only 0.84 million of that amount was offshore wind.
The country increased its investments in grid infrastructure by 13.5% year-on-year through June while it spent 74.3% more on energy storage in the last year versus the prior 12 months, the report said.
There was also strong growth in hydrogen investment which has more than doubled in the last year.